In the Money: Super Sales

The National Cutting Horse Association (NCHA) Super Stakes Open finals on April 15 featured some of the best 4-year-old cutting horses in the industry, several of which have a past that includes the sale ring. Seven of the 21 Open finalists were former sale horses, including the Champion and Reserve Champion.

Long before Hashtags carried Tatum Rice to the Super Stakes Open Championship, breeder Jim Haworth consigned him to the 2014 NCHA Preferred Breeders Sale. Selling through Session 2, the then-yearling colt brought a final bid of $81,000 from Oswaldo Celis, who acted as agent for Venezuelan owner Raul Garcia.

Hashtags’ $81,000 price tag was the day’s fifth-highest, and the 27th highest price overall at the NCHA Futurity Sales. Two years later, Hashtags (Metallic Cat x Dual Rey Tag x Dual Rey) returned to the Will Rogers Complex as a competitor in the NCHA Futurity. He had already tied for 10th in the first go and seventh in the second when his full brother, Black Tags, stepped into the sale ring during the Preferred Breeders Sale (Session 2). Celis placed the final bid at $59,000 for the 2015 colt. The next day, Hashtags was third in the Open semifinals, and he followed that up with an eighth-place effort in the NCHA Futurity Open finals.

Of the seven former sale horses, three were offered multiple times in what is known as “pinhooking.” The most successful of those was NCHA Super Stakes Open Reserve Champion Melting Snow.

Melting Snow returned to the NCHA Futurity Sales in 2015, when she was consigned to the 2-Year-Old Sale (Session 1) by Select Stock. This time, it took $280,000 to buy Melting Snow, whose new owner was Rusty Simpson, of Buck Creek Quarter Horses in Nemo, Texas.

Melting Snow was not the only six-figure sale horse in the NCHA Super Stakes Open finals. At the 2014 Select Yearling Sale and Gala, Miss Stylish Katz (High Brow Cat x Miss Stylish Pepto x Peptoboonsmal) sold for $152,000. Breeders Glenn and Debbie Drake consigned the filly, who was purchased by Sierra Oak Ranch. That same week, a full sister of the same age, Katz Stylish Miss, went through the Preferred Breeders Sale (Session 2), where she was repurchased by the Drakes for $45,000.